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Polity & Governance
Mahesh

21/02/24 08:29 AM IST

Article 142, invoked by Supreme Court to overturn Chandigarh mayoral poll results

In News
  • The Supreme Court recently invoked the sweeping powers conferred on the court under Article 142 of the Constitution.
Article 142
  • Article 142 provides a unique power to the Supreme Court, to do “complete justice” between the parties, where, at times, the law or statute may not provide a remedy.
  • In those situations, the court can extend itself to put an end to a dispute in a manner that would fit the facts of the case.
  • In the Prem Chand Garg case, the majority opinion demarcated the contours for the exercise of the court’s powers under Article 142(1) by saying that an order to do complete justice between the parties “must not only be consistent with the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, but it cannot even be inconsistent with the substantive provisions of the relevant statutory laws,” referring to laws made by Parliament
  • In the Bhopal gas tragedy case (‘Union Carbide Corporation vs Union of India’), the SC in 1991 ordered UCC to pay $470 million in compensation for the victims of the tragedy.
  • In doing so, the Bench highlighted the wide scope of Article 142 (1), adding that it found it “necessary to set at rest certain misconceptions in the arguments touching the scope of the powers of this Court under Article 142(1) of the Constitution”.
Criticism of Article 142
  • In 1998, the apex court in ‘Supreme Court Bar Association vs Union of India’ held that the powers under Article 142 are supplementary in nature and could not be used to supplant or override a substantive law and “build a new edifice where none existed earlier”.
  • The court said that the powers conferred by Article 142 are curative and cannot be construed as powers “which authorise the court to ignore the substantive rights of a litigant while dealing with a cause pending before it”.
  • Adding that Article 142 cannot be used to build a new edifice, ignoring statutory provisions dealing with a subject, the court also said that the provision cannot be used “to achieve something indirectly which cannot be achieved directly”.
  • Another criticism of the powers under Article 142 is that unlike the legislature and the executive, the judiciary cannot be held accountable for its actions.
  • The power has been criticised on grounds of the separation of powers doctrine, which says that the judiciary should not venture into areas of lawmaking and that it would invite the possibility of judicial overreach.
  • The apex court has imposed checks on its own power under Article 142.
  • In 2006, the apex court ruling by a five-judge Bench in ‘State of Karnataka vs Umadevi’ also clarified that “complete justice” under Article 142 means justice according to law and not sympathy, while holding that it will “not grant a relief which would amount to perpetuating an illegality encroaching into the legislative domain.”
Source- Indian Express

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